Abraham writes:

Twitter in particular has proven to be a great device for communication amongst our followers. It has also become a tool for evil, I’ve discovered. On Saturday, August 8th, one month after our official release date, there was a spike in tweets related to LBS. We wondered why and took a look. It appeared that people were tweeting and re-tweeting a URL that linked to a pirated version of the film.

Remember the pink slime from “Ghostbusters II”? For most of the film, it was also a “tool for evil.” But Dr. Spengler et al. sprayed it all over the inside of the Statue of Liberty, and then it made everybody hug. (Ok, it represents a slightly different kind of “free,” but I think the analogy holds.)

I don’t need to spend a lot of time on how to compete with free, since it’s a well-covered topic. Kevin Kelly’s essay “Better Than Free” lists a number of factors that you can build into your film/story/product to give it value that make it worth paying for, even when it’s available for free. Brian Newman has a blog post and video on it, which is worth watching.

What this is really about is taking advantage of Twitter and other communication tools to play a major part in the global conversation about your work. (If there isn’t one, you need to start it.) Piracy on Canal St. happened before the Internet, and illegal downloading happened before Twitter. As Abraham acknowledged, you can’t stop it. Beyond pointers to free downloads, people are going to be saying lots of things about your film that you don’t like, including bad reviews, off-brand descriptions of your work and possibly even lies or personal attacks. The power of the Internet is that you can be in on it. You can know it’s happening, you can respond to it and you can preempt it.

As a filmmaker, you are at a tremendous advantage in owning your brand’s online story. Presumably, you know all about your film before anyone else does, so you can start putting your message out there before anyone else gets to it. You own the domain name, twitter account, etc. for the name of your film. (You don’t? Get on it!) And the people who love the film are probably the most vocal about it, and they’ll link back to you. You have to work real hard to piss people off enough that the haters will shout more loudly than the fans. If you keep the conversation going, those tweets and blog posts about torrent links and other nastiness will drift off the front pages and into obscurity. There are a few tiny things about me personally from way back that I’d rather not have out there (nothing too juicy, sorry), but you have to dig pretty deep to find it, because I’ve put myself out there with Twitter, an open Facebook account, my blog, etc.. But if you keep quiet, the nasties will fill the void for you.

Of course, it’s much harder to take advantage of this when you’ve got $1 million or more at stake and you address the matter after your film is already out. I think it’s wise to keep budgets low for now, as the details are still being worked out, but they will be worked out, since these are not entirely new business principles. Mercedes-Benz doesn’t go out of business just because it’s cheaper to get to work in a Hyundai. And Coach is still profitable, even though their belts are being knocked off everywhere. That’s because Mercedes and Coach are premium brands, and it’s not about a cheap ride to the office or keeping your pants from falling down. Their advertising messages reflect that, which is why Mercedes ads have Janis Joplin and vintage cars instead of some announcer shouting about seasonal discounts.

Most independent films are also premium brands. Your film is probably not about killing 90 minutes. It’s not about catching a glimpse of Megan Fox bent over, and it’s not about keeping the kids quiet in the back of the minivan. You can’t compete with “free” on price any more than Mercedes can compete on price with Hyundai. So don’t. Your film is about a deeper story, and the ability to create that is your sustainable competitive advantage. Twitter and other digital media are your opportunity to demonstrate that.

I’m writing a film right now, and even before the script is finished, I’m planning some cool stuff for screenings, merchandise and other payment points to add value along the lines of Kevin Kelly’s article. When I release the film, I will probably put it online for free. By putting it out there myself, I can beat the pirates to it and make sure free copies are burned with a URL to my online store, and I can track how many people are watching it. But it also tells the story that my film is a full experience and more than just a few hundred megabytes of pixels. After all, as a filmmaker, I should know how to tell a story, right?

Sure the Internet is a double-edged sword. But if you know where to swing it, you don’t have to cut your face off.

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It’s been a few years since I submitted a film to a festival, but I remember it being a miserable process. It’s hard enough to deal with deadlines, trips to the post office (do people do that anymore?) and all those fees (a nasty debate in itself), but I found the premiere requirements practically crippling. Since then, I’ve attended many festivals and have even helped program one, so I have a different understanding of how these things work.

Below, I examine the issue from the perspective of different groups involved and see how each is affected by premiere requirements. I encourage anyone with more experience or a different take to post a comment.

Filmmakers

At a minimum, premiere requirements limit the number of times and places you can have your film exhibited. If you include restrictions on other media, it also eliminates opportunities to build an audience or earn money by having a film available online with advertising revenue or for sale as a download or DVD. But it can stop a filmmaker even before getting to festivals. Filmmakers often have to adjust their post-production and release schedules to the annual cycle of festivals and their deadlines. Premiere requirements can force a producer to pass on one festival in favor of a later, more prestigious festival. If they don’t get accepted to that first choice, they’re forced to wait a whole year to try again at that second choice. By that point, they’ve lost time, audience, relevance and money, and they’re submitting year-old film.

It could be good for filmmakers in that it keeps more screening slots open for more films, but I’m afraid this is not always the spirit in which these rules are in place. And it doesn’t help at all in the case of platform exclusivity.

Festivals

In a short-term way that doesn’t involve too much thinking, premiere requirements are great for festivals, which is presumably why they are still in effect. It can help attract press and industry to a festival, assuming these people are already convinced that the films in question are worth the trip. More simply, the requirements give festivals a lot of power over filmmakers. Lots of other companies use exclusivity as well to raise their negotiating power. (More on that here.) When a filmmaker is forced to put all their eggs in your basket, you can make them beg, and it’s harder for them to ask for concessions like a screening fee or help with a flight and hotel room. The top festivals can use this as a tactic to affect a first-look right for themselves.

Having been a programmer, however, I’ve observed first-hand that great films are precious, so it seems silly to turn away a good film because it’s playing a thousand miles away the week before.

Also, if festivals are to stay relevant, and I believe they can, they need to improve upon and emphasize the value they add as social events. Relying on exclusivity is decreasingly effective and distracts from that.

Audiences

I’m hard pressed to think how premiere requirements are anything but bad for audiences. In my experience, most non-industry festival attendees are local. Very few people can afford to take a week off and spend money on travel for a film festival if it’s not for work. Even locally, film fans don’t have time to run out of films to see. While it is nice to know you’re seeing something before everybody else, you can retain most of that experience knowing that you’re seeing a film in advance of a wide release (if it even happens at all) and with the director and actors in attendance.

Gen Art is an example of a festival that consistently fills theaters with a local, non-industry audience without a strict premiere requirement. They even host year-round screenings of films the week before wide release, adding the value of an after-party and a post-screening discussion with the director and actors.

Newman speaks about the importance of curation. People have more entertainment options than ever. Acceptance into a prestigious (or not) festival is no guarantee that you’ll love a film, and even if it were, many festivals keep attendees too busy to see everything. Prior festival screenings give films time to build a track record of reviews, buzz and community that can help audiences do their own curation and even heighten the experience.

Press and Industry

For the most part, I think premiere requirements are pretty good for press and industry. I assume they were mostly put in place to attract these people. Distributors, festival programmers, journalists and bloggers go to a lot of festivals, so they don’t need to see the same films over and over again. But many of these people have access to screener copies of all these films anyway. While it does make a difference to see a film with an audience, that is not the way most people will see these films.

It appears that premiere requirements hurt more than they help, and they are helping the wrong people. Distributors are not acquiring many films right now, at least not for enough money to cover a production budget. Professional reviews are great, but they are not the best way to reach audiences. And industry professionals have other reasons to attend festivals – networking, panel discussions and free drinks. Film festivals are great at creating social experiences, and they are best suited to serving audiences first, filmmakers second and everybody else after that.

Premiere requirements seem to be based on the idea that a film starts with a certain value and then shrinks from there on out. This is the same idea that holds up the old model of windows, where a film starts with a big opening weekend, followed by decreasing box office and a chain of platforms, each offering lower cost and lower quality. I believe this model is obsolete, and that producers, audiences and the industry can benefit from giving films a chance to grow.

To see the relevant part of Brian Newman’s talk, go here, click on the “menu” button in the upper-right corner of the video player, and select the fourth section, titled “Conversation.”

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You can listen with the embedded player below or download the full mp3.

The other panelists were:

1. Scott Kirsner (moderator) is a journalist and all-around smart guy. He’s the author of two books, Inventing the Movies, which I frequently cite as a defining analysis of how the film industry falls behind on innovation, and Fans, Friends & Followers, an excellent collection of interviews with artists who build their own audiences and distribute their own work. He also writes the blog Cinematech.
2. Chris Holland Director of Festival Operations at B-Side and author of Film Festival Secrets.
3. Sean Flynn producer and cinematographer at Principle Pictures.

We discussed a range of topics, including:

1. Benefits and pitfalls of social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.)
2. Strategies for reaching audiences before, during and after production
3. Crowdsourcing to build audiences as well as help production
4. How much of your content to post online for free
5. Ad revenue models
6. Distribution formats (DVD, download, streaming, theatrical, etc.)
7. Applying all the above to other media such as music and art

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I’m looking forward to attending IFFB for the first time. I’ve heard great things about the festival, since Four Eyed Monsters played there in 2005, and the festival’s Program Director Adam Roffman managed the very successful Boston release of the film in 2006.

Here are the Details:
Sunday, April 26, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Somerville Theatre
55 Davis Sq
Somerville, MA 02144
(617) 625-5700
map

The other panelists are:

1. Scott Kirsner (moderator) is a journalist and all-around smart guy. He’s the author of two books, Inventing the Movies, which I frequently cite as a defining analysis of how the film industry falls behind on innovation, and Fans, Friends & Followers, an excellent collection of interviews with artists who build their own audiences and distribute their own work. He also writes the blog Cinematech.
2. Chris Holland Director of Festival Operations at B-Side and author of Film Festival Secrets.
3. Sean Flynn producer and cinematographer at Principle Pictures.

Update: I recorded and posted the entire panel here.

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I’ve also been invited to speak on a panel about short films. The panel is on Tuesday, March 11 at 11am, in room 15 of the Austin Convention Center. Friends Jigar Mehta and Brent Hoff are on the panel with me.

Is it the Golden Age of Short Film? People keep saying it is, but I doubt many filmmakers have felt the gold yet. Some short films are bringing in more money than most award winning documentary’s are being sold for. Find out what is the best way to capitalize on these new potential revenue streams as Filmmakers and industry experts discuss if this will really finally elevate/free shorts to become an art form and not just a stepping stone to features.

If you’re in Austin, come find me.

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Susan tells about an email that Arin received from someone who discovered the film as a free, unofficial (and basically illegal) download on Bittorrent. He loved the film so much that he bought a t-shirt and DVD from the website. This is a great follow-up example to the grilling a London filmmaker gave me about whether it’s possible to make money when you’re giving your film away for free.

Renart Films Podcast Episode 28 – Susan Buice

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We are well beyond denying that a film website is the most effective and often the only entry point to discovery of your film. The audience has to jump an increasingly absurd number of hurdles to see your movie in the theater. The website is an opportunity to introduce the film as quickly as possible, provide the detailed information your audience and the media are looking for, to engage your audience repeatedly, and to make it ridiculously easy for fans to promote your film for you.

Below, I’m going to explain why this ancient model fails and suggest a few starting points for an alternative approach.

Why Flash sites fail

• Flash sites are heavy and slow. It takes extra time to download and process all those big graphics and sounds, and you can’t afford to make the casual web browsing fan wait. Many of them may be browsing on computers a few years old or spotty wi-fi connections. That “loading” progress bar isn’t part of your story, is it? Nobody likes it.
• Flash sites give your site a non-standard interface. Where did the right-click menu go? How do you copy text to the clipboard? Where does that link go? Does it open in another window? What does the “back” button do? Where the hell is the button that stops that loud music? Nobody wants to re-learn how to browse the web just for your little movie.
• Flash is not searchable. If you do it right, many visitors will find your site through a search engine. With Flash, that all disappears. It also prevents searching within the browser.
• Most of these sites don’t allow deep-linking. That’s the trade-off for not having to reload the whole flash file every time you go to a different section. This is important for encouraging links to your content. See if you can find a direct link to the trailer on the Lions for Lambs site.
• Flash can’t be syndicated. RSS and Atom feeds are becoming increasingly important as easy tools for people to follow your updates through news readers, such as Google Reader.
• Those animations keep repeating. They’re cool the first time, but don’t make me watch your menu fly in every time I go to another section of your site.
• You’re tied to your designer. Most Flash sites don’t allow you to easily change around your interface without going back to the busy, expensive Flash contractor you hired to build your site. What if you want to change one little menu item? Or even redesign the entire layout without losing all the content? Even another Flash expert could have a hard time tracking down the original source files and scripts. Same goes for jpg image map interfaces.
• Most Flash sites, like the examples cited above, give the impression that the site is finished forever, that there’s no reason to keep coming back for new content. Even if there’s a news section, it’s much harder and more expensive to implement in Flash than in other HTML-based options.
• No need to re-invent the wheel. Web browsers are good at laying out text and images and performing all the functions that go along with it. Flash requires you to re-implement all that, and more often than not you’re not gonna cover all the bases.

That’s not to say that you can’t solve any of the above problems within a Flash-based framework, but it’s a lot harder.

Easy Alternatives

Set your film site up as a blog. It’s that simple. They’re searchable, deep-linkable, syndicate-able, re-designable, subscribe-able, modular and allow easy user interaction through comments. Get yourself Wordpress on your own server or on theirs. You can also try Livejournal, Blogger or Moveable Type. For the most part, they’re all free. Do a comparison.

Most blogging software will double as a content management system. So even if your main purpose is not to blog, you can easily set up fixed pages to give the basic information about your film. You may still need help from an expert to fully customize your layout, but they all come with multiple themes that should be enough to get you started.

See Four Eyed Monsters as an example. There are some things I would do differently if I had it to do over again, but for the most part, the site was a success. I wish I knew more examples of film sites that I like. If you know of some, please comment on this post.

When Flash is okay

There are some things that Flash is much better at than HTML, and I encourage using it for those specific purposes. The best example is for embedded media players, such as YouTube or any of the countless other video hosting sites. There are also good embedded audio players, like the one in the Audio Player Wordpress plugin. (See it in action on Lance’s site.) Flash is also great for games or animation, as on Homestar Runner.

The other reasons I think it works so well in those situations are that the non-standard interface is within a confined space of the specific media player and because the specific, compartmentalized rich-media experience makes it worth waiting for the download. (More on that another time.) Otherwise, lose it.

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I introduced myself and my role in the Four Eyed Monsters self-distribution. We focused on the application of traditional business principals to the changing models of media distribution. Have a look:

The video is also available in higher-bandwidth Flash or as a MP4 download on my blip.tv channel. Arin has videos of the other speakers on his YouTube channel.

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Other highlights: made breakfast, changed sheets.

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I can see where that message might appeal to some people, but is it really worth giving the Dems an opportunity to make their point right on the main page of georgebush.com? Are these guys being ballsy, desperate or just plain obtuse? I mean, Hitler? Honestly. The Kerry campaign doesn’t seem to find this as funny as I do. Check out this blog entry . Bush has a blog too. I have no plans to waste my time with either of them.

Speaking of entertaining politics, both the New York Times and The New Yorker have profiles of Governor Schwarzenegger this week. Both very well written, interesting and informative. They both portray him as quite charismatic and give a deeper, more nuanced impression of him than most media coverage he’s received so far. I still think he’s a schmuck.

Coincidentally or not, Terminator 3 was on tonight. As I’m staying home to do laundry, I watched it. All of it, actually. It’s surprisingly not awful. Two aspects that bother me about it are the handful of gaping holes in logic and the dumbed-down, exposition-heavy dialogue. Funny and maybe a bit ironic how these guys over-explain everything, giving too much information in movies and give way too little in politics. I would have thought it should be the other way around. However, there are some similarities. Like much politics today, Terminator 3 is basically a parody of the last one from a decade ago but dumber and with a lot more unnecessary destruction.

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